ability to regenerate lost limbs, as well as other body parts, in a process known asecdysis.
Salamanders are found in most moist or arid habitats in the northern hemisphere. They are
generally small, but some can reach 30 cm (a foot) or more, as in the mudpuppy of North
America. In Japan and China, the giant salamander reaches 1.8 m (6 ft) and weighs up to
30 kg (66 lb) (Figure13.17).
Figure 13.17: The Pacific giant salamander can reach up to 6 ft in length and 66 lb in weight.
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The order Urodela, containing the salamanders and newts, is divided into three suborders.
These consist of the giant salamanders (including the hellbender and Asiatic salamanders),
advanced salamanders (including lungless salamanders, mudpuppies, and newts), and sirens.
Frogs and Toads
Frogs and toads (Figure13.18) are amphibians in the order Anura. A distinction is often
made between frogs and toads on the basis of their appearance, caused by theconvergent
adaptationamong so-called toads to dry environments (leathery skin for better water re-
tention and brown coloration for camouflage), but this distinction has no taxonomic basis.
One family,Bufonidae,is exclusively given the common name “toad,” but many species from
other families are also called “toads.”
Frogs are distributed from the tropics to subarctic regions, but most species are found in
tropical rainforests. Consisting of more than 5,000 species (about 88% of amphibian species
are frogs), they are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates. Frogs range in size from
10 mm (less than ½ in) in species in Brazil and Cuba to the 300 mm (1 ft) goliath frog of